And to think, they used to be such nice boys - Young Knives have been taking pot shots again, and this time the smoking barrels are pointed in the direction of the NME and the readers of some website called ‘DrownedinSound’.

Talking ahead of their NME Awards show performance at the London Astoria on Tuesday night (26 Feb) the band and DiS were objectively weighing up the merits and motives of a Gossip live album when out of nowhere frontman Henry Dartnall was drawn to speak on the topic of ‘cynicism’.

“Anyway, DrownedinSound is the most cynical website I’ve ever been on,” began Dartnall, presumably referring to the article that saw Phil Collins score an unanticipated rep win over his band.

“They hate us, they hate everything… all the punters hate everything.

“If you look at our reviews they’re not bad, but some of the things the readers say… I take things quite personally sometimes and I go on there it just goes 'mediocre, mediocre, fucking shittest band I’ve ever seen', you just go ‘fuck it, I’m not gonna go on here again’, but I keep going back to it.”

When asked if he had a message for the site’s readers, Dartnall replied: “At least they hate us, I just don’t like the idea that we’re mediocre, that’d be awful.

“I’ll take ‘I hate this, this is the worst thing I’ve ever heard’ or ‘I love this’, but to get six out of ten, that kind of reaction… probably what that shit pop music paper will give us for our album.”

When asked if he meant the NME, Dartnall replied in the affirmative.

But isn’t this an NME show?

“Yeah! And they’ll be making money off us… Oh god, it makes me sick the music business. You use them and let them refuse you… (under his breath) gaylords.”

Superabundance, the band's new album, will arrive on the 10th of March, while the full interview with Young Knives will run on DiS over the coming weeks.